


To Hold His Hand

by Englishtutor



Series: The Other Doctor Watson [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Falling In Love, Gen, Holding Hands
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-07
Updated: 2016-03-07
Packaged: 2018-05-25 06:59:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6185125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Englishtutor/pseuds/Englishtutor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which John and Mary go on their first date and gently begin to fall in love.  Begins immediately following "Oddly Detached."</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Hold His Hand

“Oh, I’ll tell you something  
I think you’ll understand  
When I say that something  
I want to hold your hand.”  
Lennon/McCartney

000

She sat across from him at the table and did not know where to look. She could not remember ever being this nervous before in her life. But sitting in Angelo’s on their very first date, Mary Morstan was about as far from calm as she could be. After insulting John Watson by obviously avoiding him for over a year, how could she now make him understand how very sorry she was for the loss of time, and how very interested she was in getting to know him? Very, most intensely, interested.

The past two weeks had been the most exciting time of her life, as she trailed behind John and his detective friend watching them solve the ten-year-old mystery of her father’s disappearance. She had learned that her father had been murdered, and the murderers had been caught; but more importantly, she had learned that all of the vicious gossip in the office about Dr. Watson had been completely wrong. The more she got to know about the real John Watson, the more she wanted to know. She was sure he was the most extraordinary person she’d ever met.

“Not running away from me anymore then?” he had asked her that day in the office over lunch. He had been amused—she had been embarrassed. And he had been amazed to learn that he had a reputation at work as a thoroughgoing rake. He had asked her out to dinner—she had eagerly accepted. He had picked her up at eight. And here she sat feeling like a school-girl with a crush, suddenly unable to look him in the face without blushing. Her eyes lit instead on his hands, holding the menu.

His hands. She had seen those hands gently soothe frightened toddlers and elderly patients alike at the clinic over the past year. She had seen him save lives with those healing hands; bind up wounds, set bones, suture torn flesh. She had known he was an army doctor in a previous life; it had not occurred to her that he had been both a skilled surgeon and an equally skilled sniper. How many people, she wondered, owed their lives to this man’s hands? How many lives had those hands taken? Oddly enough, she felt certain that she had fallen in love with John Watson during the wild chase on the Thames in a fishing yacht, when he had saved all their lives with an impossible shot of his service weapon, held in steady and competent hands.

“I’ll have my usual,” John said to Angelo cheerfully, handing over the menu. 

“Um,” Mary hedged. She had not once glanced at her menu, having been distracted by her thoughts. “I’ll have what John’s having.”

Angelo looked disapproving, but whisked away to put in their orders. He had made it clear when he showed them to their table that he thought Sherlock Holmes should have been sitting in her chair. Mary hid a smile. Half of London seemed to believe that John was gay and Sherlock’s boyfriend. The other half held the opinion that John was an incorrigible womanizer, fully living up to his army-given nickname of “Three Continents Watson.” The truth, she was finding, was ever so much deeper, so much more complicated, so much more interesting than any rumour.

And what would it be like, she mused as she sampled the wine, to hold John Watson’s hand?

 

000

“Yeah, you got that something  
I think you’ll understand  
When I feel that something  
I want to hold your hand.”  
Lennon/McCartney

000

They had spent as much time as possible together during the next two and half weeks. John had been busy helping Sherlock with a case for several days in a row. But when he was at the clinic, they took every lunch and tea break together, and often even managed to meet for morning coffee before their shift began. Dates included four walks in three different parks, bundled in heavy coats and hats and scarves as the temperatures plummeted; seven dinners out at a fun assortment of restaurants; and two Saturday excursions to some of London’s marvellous museums. Mary had never thought she would meet someone with whom she had so much in common. They never seemed to run out of things to do or to talk about. They had enjoyed the same books; they liked the same films; they had the same tastes in food. Their lives seemed to merge effortlessly, as if they had (to use a cliché) been made for each other.

But in all that time, John never tried to so much as hold Mary’s hand.

He was always a perfect gentleman. It wasn’t an act—she could see that it had been bred into him and old-fashioned courtesy came as naturally to him as breathing. But she could also see that he had been mortified by her revelation concerning his rakish reputation and was determined to prove it wrong. She understood this. After all, he was perfectly aware that she had avoided him like a disease when she thought he was an opportunistic womanizer. He would not want her to wonder whether there might be something to the stories about him after all. And so he never tried anything. Not anything. At all.

He politely offered his arm whenever they were walking together, through parks or down the street, and she held onto him gladly. Her hand, clutching the inside of his elbow, fitted there perfectly in her opinion. A few times, as they navigated a crowded area, he had placed a protective hand on her shoulder as they negotiated their way through. She had never needed “help” before, simply to get from point A to point B. But she was finding it pleasant to be cared for and treated like a lady, as if she were important and deserved special treatment. Still, she did wonder how long it might take for the gentleman to give way to the man.

Now their date tonight had become a revelation to Mary, although John was constantly surprising her. They had gone to a pub, and as they were leaving, she uttered a startled squeak. A rude chap had followed after them and grabbed her rear, making a lewd suggestion in a very loud, drunken voice. Before he had finished his disgusting comment, he was on his back on the floor with John’s foot on this throat. Several people in the room stirred to help, but John stilled them with a sweeping, authoritative glance and an upraised hand.

“I believe you owe the lady an apology,” John stated calmly.

The drunken fellow grabbed John’s foot and twisted, but instantly stopped with a yelp of pain as John pressed harder against the man’s Adam’s apple.

“Don’t move or I’ll break your larynx,” John informed him in a conversational tone. “I’m a doctor—I know how to break people.”

“All right, all right!” the drunk cried, holding his hands in the air to show his surrender. “Just let me go!”

John sighed. “Can’t do that, mate. Not until my girlfriend hears an apology.” His casual tone now held an undercurrent of icy menace that would have frozen the bravest man’s spine. 

“I’m sorry, all right? I’m sorry!” he cried, panicked.

John looked at Mary and quirked an eyebrow. She shrugged. “I accept your sincere apology,” she said graciously. 

John nodded and lifted his foot. “That’s better. Being polite has its own rewards, mate. Remember that.” And he took Mary’s elbow and they walked out the door.

They hadn't gone far before a meaty hand clamped down on John's shoulder from behind them. “I ain’t done with you,” a menacing voice slurred. Mary gasped as John whirled around, quick as a thought, and bloodied the drunk’s nose with a loud crunch of bone. Down the man went again and cracked his head on the pavement with a cry. John knelt beside him and dutifully checked him out with practiced hands as two more men approached at a jog. John looked up at them with a baleful eye.

“Friends of his?” he asked dryly, standing up slowly with a dangerous look. They nodded warily, backing away a few steps. “He’ll be all right,” they were assured grimly. “Get him home, and next time keep him on a leash, why don’t you? For his own good, if not for the good of society.” They nodded again and picked up their unconscious friend and carried him away as quickly as they could.

Mary had been aware that John was a dangerous man. She had, after all, fallen in love with him even as she watched him kill a man (a man who was strafing their boat with semi-automatic gunfire) with a cold precision that ought to have frightened her. Now she knew he was more than that. He was a man she could rely on; who had a sense of right and wrong and followed through on it. She had never had anyone in her life who could be called reliable in any way. This was a new feeling for her, and one she knew she could grow to like very much.

As they proceeded down the street, she looked up at him with a mischievous grin. “Your girlfriend now, am I?” she asked impishly.

“Hmm. Would you like to be?” he asked, smiling back at her hopefully. Gone was the steely soldier. He looked charmingly like a bashful schoolboy on his first date.

Yes, it would be up to her to take the initiative here, Mary realized. John was apparently very concerned with protecting her from unwanted attention, even from himself. And so she reached over and grabbed his hand; and his fingers closed over hers in a very satisfactory way, even though they were both wearing gloves against the November cold. She smiled at him, twinkling with joy. 

“I’d like nothing better,” she assured him, squeezing his hand.


End file.
